Tips for managers on the basic things to have in place if one wants to run a successful project.

I was recently made aware of HTML5's canvas element and I believe that this could render Silverlight, JavaFX and Flex obsolete. The "canvas" tag allows you to embed script based graphics, usually JavaScript, in your page. Expect the leading Ajax frameworks, like JQuery and GWT, to provide programmer friendly APIs for canvas based visualizations.

Everybody who works in an office will have heard at least one of these phrases and if you haven’t, you life must be stress free. Check out this list of the most annoying office phrases

I seem to be caught between two IDEs: Eclipse and IntelliJ. I abandoned Eclipse a couple of years back, partly based on wide spread recommendations from many different people, and partly because Eclipse just stopped working for me (it crashed out).

A lot of people aspire to learn programming, and it's not an easy task (there are countless pitfalls that aspiring programmers typically parade into like lemmings), so I figured it would be useful to outline a path acquire that goal.

Like it or not, as a professional developer, sooner or later you are going to do some customising (if you are lucky, "extending") of existing software. If you are not familiar with the software, it is good advice to look into it before accepting the job. I had to learn that the hard way. But how do you recognize crappy applications without getting knee deep into the code? 10 pointers to identify crappy PHP software quickly...

Pair programming is like magic in more ways than one. It dramatically improves programmer productivity and reduces bug count, and yet it does so through a technique that’s completely counter-intuitive. You can’t help but think that there’s some trick yet to be exposed; that pair programming is just slight of hand. In this article, I will endeavor to pull back the curtain and reveal the secrets of the pair programming magicians.

As I noted in the last blog post, the bulk of the latest update to the Jimmy Cuadra Web Services site was rewriting everything using the CakePHP framework. At several times during the process of learning Cake and building a website using it, I considered dropping it altogether and just going back to coding everything from scratch.

In the future, hopefully every programmer will be relieved from the horrible pain of dealing with HTML, browser compatibility issues, CSS quirks and the same low-level stuff that used to be common before PL/SQL was replaced by ORMs.

It seems that Singleton from all design patterns is the most controversial one and people have drastically different views on whether or not it is useful. Many think it is in fact an antipattern and it does more harm than good [...]

Object database experts select the best patterns

When you get a new job, you can breathe a sigh of relief, but not for long. You have an offer letter in your hand, and it is easy to miss one of the most important opportunities of your life – the starting salary. Here’s the tale of two programmers. When getting a job, Goofus didn’t negotiate. Gallant asked and got an extra $2500. They both get yearly raises of 3%

I have enjoyed reading some of the 2009 JavaOne presentations since they have been made available online. One of the presentations I was most interested to read was Joseph Darcy's Small Language Changes in JDK Release 7: Project Coin. I have blogged on Project Coin previously, but am using this blog post to summarize some of the things I found most interesting about this JavaOne presentation.

Eclipse Galileo is out now. It is remarkable: 33 projects and 24 million lines of code, according to the press release. Perhaps the two biggest features in this release are support for Mac Cocoa - in order words, proper Mac support - and PHP development tools. All open source, all free.

What idiot at Microsoft thought this would be a good idea? What group of idiots let it continue for years?

Some of you will remember my rant about open source, and how I couldn't find time to do it and didn't know how anyone could. That post caused a big backlash, lots of people wanted to know how I could say that without ever trying it. Many more shared their personal experiences getting involved in open source and loving it. They explained that it was something you MADE time for. So, to see if they were right I did make time. Let me just tell you, totally worth it.

Making a webapp for the iPhone is a lot like making a normal web site, but with a few quirks to abide by. In this article, I'll give you a wide variety of tips, covering things such as: "must-haves", usability guidelines, testing/debugging, pitfalls, and performance issues. I hope you enjoy it!

There has been some discussion in recent days regarding Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs), Drupal, and why the latter doesn't use the former. There are, actually, many reasons for that, and for why Drupal doesn't do more with the Active Record pattern. Rather than tuck such discussion away in an issue queue, I figured it better to document a bit more widely.

After the Vista fiasco, Microsoft owes its long-suffering customers more than a “screaming deal.” They’re owed an apology from Steve Ballmer - and a free copy of Vista SP3 Windows 7.

SQL is quite possibly the oldest language in wide use today. It begs for changes or even complete replacement, but the entire area of databases somehow remains very uninviting for innovation and paradigm shifts. Why? Good question, I don't know, and I don't think I care either... Oh, and maybe that's the answer?

To deliver value, IT departments must keep a tight rein on how they use their budget - and that includes development efforts. Justin James cites some of the most common areas where IT throws its development bucks down the drain.

"In this article, we’ll show you a different approach to image optimization, based on how image data is stored in different formats. Let’s start with the JPEG format and a simple technique called the eight-pixel grid."

I don’t want to hear about Firefox advances! Not until I know IE has caught up! Slow down FF!

On the importance of paying attention to small details.

Shooting pool at City Billiards in 2002, my friend Hans offhandedly says, "You should read Martin Fowler's Refactoring." That moment changed my life. Well, technically, the hours spent reading the book over the following week changed my life, but let's not quibble. Seven years later, I still believe this is the book to read when starting out on the path to being an engineer. It's not so high-level or inaccessible as Design Patterns (although still a foundational book), nor is it as low level and implementation specific as Clean Code or Implementation Patterns (also worthwhile reads).